Certain industrial facilities, such as mines and mills, are large operations with a number of regions or areas, and for a number of reasons, it is important to have a record of whether the workers are in the facility, and where the workers in the facility, or mobile equipment, or both, are located. The typical methods and systems for doing so are very simple, and have a number of disadvantages.
For example, at many facilities, “tag boards” are used to indicate who is in the facility, and who is not. The prior art tag board typically has a substantially vertical flat surface, with a number of tag hooks mounted on the surface. If the facility is an underground mine, then the surface of the tag board may be divided into two areas, “surface” and “underground”. In other facilities, the two areas typically are designated otherwise, e.g., “in” and “out”. Each worker has a physical tag (e.g., a metal disk) that may be hung on a tag hook. The intention is that each worker moves his tag from one area to the other as he enters or leaves the facility, as appropriate.
Other prior art versions may include other types of boards and tags, e.g., a magnetic board may be used, with magnets serving as tags.
There are a number of problems with the prior art tag boards. For example, the incoming worker may forget to move his tag from the “out” area to the “in” area. Also, the worker who leaves the facility may forget to move his tag from the “in” area to the “out” area.
Depending on the business or facility, in certain circumstances, these types of mistakes may have serious consequences. For example, where the tag board is used at an underground mine, a worker's failure to move his tag from the “in” area to the “out” area may, if there is an accident or explosion underground, cause search and rescue personnel to search for that person unnecessarily, sometimes putting their own lives at risk in the process.
There are many other problems or shortcomings with the prior art boards. For instance, the board does not include any means for keeping track of the time when a particular worker entered the facility, or exited.
Finally, because the prior art tags and tag boards are manually used, the information they provide is limited, and to obtain any such information (e.g., how many workers are in the facility at a particular time), an administrative employee must be physically present at the board, and manually count the tags. Also, the administrative employee would have to determine whose tags are in the “in” (or underground) part of the board. This is time-consuming, especially if there are a large number of workers involved. In addition, because the information is only on the board, it would not be available if, for example, the board is destroyed or inaccessible due to an accident.